Bulk manufacturing of Crystal Focus V3.0 : we need you !

[xwingband]

Erv, shouldnt the price go down once they are mass produced?

Thats usually the standard thing to happen with mass produced items.

If they are mass produced in HIGH quantities... thousands not a hundred or so.

If you couldn't afford it before I wouldn't count on this to drop the price. Reasons: A) He stated that components would need to be green compliant B) The falling price of the USD, realized the last ones were more like $160 even though the price is still 100 Euro C) Quantity, I took a CAD course that dealt with manufacturing and we learned cost analysis and it takes thousands to make true automated manufacture viable. Even 200 boards is chump change to even a small board manufacturer.

If you want the best, don't balk at the price.

[DACOTA]

Well I understand your point, but I wasnt balking, I just was wondering if the price would go down, if it did well thats great but if not then I dont care, I will still be getting one.

In my opinion the cf is a million times better than the ultrabaord, so the cf is definately worth $60 more.

[Novastar]

Most manufacturers require a minimum of 1000 pieces before dropping the price in any significant way, and X is exactly right... there are other issues at play once you go from "home made" to "corporate giant" so-to-speak.

I ought to know... man, did I get overwhelmed by all of that when *I* was looking into making the Ns5 project. I simply couldn't afford to risk making 1000 boards for two main reasons... 1... I don't even know if I could MARKET to 1000 people, and 2... even if the board only cost $50 to build... that $50,000 to drop quickly, only to be SLOWLY be making it back as the PCB sold one by one. I could afford maybe $6000 to $10000... but 50G? heeeeeecccccck no. Can't do it alone.

Oh, and don't forget marketing. Who wants to make 1000 boards when you have *NO* marketing campaign. And I am not talking about forums and a simple website and a few people shouting good things. I'm talking newspaper ads, mass web ads, integration with most all things SW, mailings, targeting "SW nerds" and all that. Not even to mention... as we ALL know... most of us "SW nerds" don't have a ton of $$$ to blow on expensive toys. Only a small percentage.

But hey... when I win the lottery... (Oops, I don't play...)

[Obi-Dar Ke-Gnomie]

So, how will this work Erv?

Do you need a deposit to help you pay for the production?

Will you just announce that they are ready, and it's first come, first served, or do those who sent an e-mail get notified first? I know that you said you are going to make plenty, but I can imagine that they will still sell out pretty quickly.

[strengthofrage]

I was wondering this also. I just kinda guessed that those of us that replied to Erv with those initial emails were put on a waiting list type of thing like the Ultra Sound email thing...

[Novastar]

I think I can safely say that Erv now has more of an INTEREST list. I don't think Erv is very comfortable taking 50% (or any percent) of people's payments PRIOR to the creation of his products... especially when payment doesn't necessarily guarantee part availability and so forth.

There is a difference between Erv's way of thinking and others with "waiting" or "pre-order" lists. I could probably start speaking of why I am in agreement with Erv's choice to do this over other businesses choices... but it is what it is.

And let's get this back on track:

----------------------------------------
ERV WROTE: ...before I can ask for real quotes, I need to fetch for the number of possibly interested people.
So : please send me an email (NO PRIVATE MESSAGES) or use the contact form of the website, INDICATE IN THE SUBJECT "Crystal focus Interest" and include
- your pseudo
- your name
- your location / country
- How many board(s) you are willing to purchase

I'm going to reach people also using my "product notification".
****Please don't answer twice****

Thanks,
Erv'
-----------------------------------------

I sincerely hope we can get CF rolling well... but the saber community is much smaller than many of us think. Especially when the SOLE mass-marketing... comes from/came from Lucasfilm/Lucasarts and MR.

[Obi-Dar Ke-Gnomie]

I just thought that it might cost him a lot of money to get these rolling, and a deposit might help. Whatever. I sent him the message when he first asked, so I'll just wait patiently until they're ready.

[strengthofrage]

The old school Hientz kecthup commercials come to mind lol ..."good things come..."

[DarthFender]

The old school Hientz kecthup commercials come to mind lol ..."good things come..."

I was thinking of the other one...

Anticipation.

[erv]

hi folks, sorry for not being there often enough.
To answer some of your questions :
- I'll probably get the quote from the manufacturer next week. Why it took so long : xmas vacation, time required to find the right compagny and avoid wasting time with silly ones (hopefully, someone helped me to filter quickly), a few days more to establish a commercial relationship with the compagny and providing a viable manufacturing file, then waiting for the price they propose me.
- xwing is right : 1000 units is a kind of breakpoint. You'll always low down the price between 4 and 20, and between 20 and 50, and bw 50 and 100. Then 100 or 200 are the same, next real significant price discount is about 500 then 1000.
- I honnestly have NO IDEA of what the compagny will propose me. Maybe it's definitly too high. I'm neither stupid nor a crook : I'll never sell the board 200 euros "just because the manufacturing process costs me a harm and a leg".
- Until now, I was getting just the PCB manufactured, the price was good. Then I was buying the price thru an internet shop, got some discount, but I know that I was not getting the best. It's like ordering 100 parts from jameco, it's cheaper than when buying just one, but it's probably still the double price if you were buying from the manufacturer and that you are a manufacturing compagny.
- understanding that, I don't really expect that the cost price will be lower than when I was making them by hand. We will see. Even if it's a bit higher than before, I'm ready to accept a certain amount, since I'll be saving a lot of time.
- Would be different by ordering 1000 of board. But, as nova said, the market is not that big. Sure, I'm going to sell 100 quickly, but I can't think about having a stock of 500 and sell them in 2 years. First because it's "wasted money". CF boards on the shelf is money that is sleeping not very well. Second because I might need/want to improve CF again and again and getting stuck by the hardware is a problem. What do you do then with the "old" version : you have to discount them. Third because it's my first personnal manufacturing process. I've done such a thing at work, for the lab, with batches of 50 units. Now it's my personnal cash, can't take the risk to invest $10,000 or $20,000 (some of you won't understand that, but I have a family life, and relationship to money, bank etc isn't the same in europe and in the US, and I'm definitly not going to ask for a loan to produce those)
- I'm not taking the cash of anyone before I can get the boards in my hand. I'm the one that take the responsability for those. I can't see myself asking people to pay, then have to refund everybody because none of my boards work. Be sure it happends. Sh%t happens. I've always worked like that : no pre order. All I can say is that I'll order enough so that there's even more than the interest list I've been creating.

so... i'll do my best to make it happen. The goal is to sell the batch in a reasonnable amount of time not because of money aspects, but because it will represent the technology of now/today and it has to be real time, instead of being stored in 1000s of units.
If you compare with MR : have you noticed that even the yoda saber hasn't a different sound font than the luke ep 6 for instance... ? simply because MR payed for a sound chip / board master controller (the little IC buried under the black resin, on the MR board) that was produced in thousands of units, and they reused it for various saber. Can't tell by heart, cause I'm not a specialist of MR stuff, but I don't think a lot of different sound boards were produced. Again, I'm talking about the sound, NOT about the shape or wiring of the PCB.

More soon,
thanks for reading
Erv'